


we thought we lost you (welcome back)

by walksbyherself



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon May Joss This, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walksbyherself/pseuds/walksbyherself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Cora Hale</p>
            </blockquote>





	we thought we lost you (welcome back)

Your name is Cora Hale.

Derek is your brother and he is all that is left of your family. (You don’t count Peter, because you would have a sister too if not for Peter.)

You have a place to live that is sometimes safe. You have your brother. It is enough.

 

You and Derek never talk about the past, because the subject is too painful. 

 

You can hear the pipe twisting in Derek’s chest, grinding against muscle and gristle and bone.

You have the strangest feeling that you have been here before.

 

Where were you before the bank vault? 

 

Peter is suspicious and you find that oddly reassuring. Who wouldn’t be, in circumstances like yours?

That Derek isn’t is a measure of his love; Peter had his love burned out of him long ago.

(But Peter still takes your hand when you go to run.)

 

You dream of the alphas invading the apartment again. Kali ripping the pipe down, Derek crawling away. This time Kali offers the pipe to you. You take it with a smile and drive it through Derek’s lung.

He writhes, gasping, and you smile and smile and smile.

(You wake sobbing. Derek sits with you, holds you until the shaking stops, cleans your face like he did when you were small. He never asks what the nightmare was about, and you wonder about his own.)

 

You catch Isaac looking at you sometimes and you wonder if he likes you. You can’t remember the last time a boy liked you.

 

How did you survive the fire?

 

The dream follows you. Tonight it is Isaac in Derek’s place. He keeps turning his head, trying to look at you, trying to speak with a mouth full of blood. 

Tonight the twins are there as well. They laugh and you laugh with them.

(This time when you wake, you are silent. You can hear Derek’s heartbeat from the bottom of the stairs, waiting to see if you need him. You scrub tears from your cheeks and take deep, slow breaths. When he goes back to his own bed, you try to sleep.)

 

You and Derek never talk about the past. It’s too painful.

(This is what “too painful” means: when Derek tried to remember the last time he saw you before the fire, he collapsed, clutching his head, teeth closed on a scream. You watched, saying nothing. After a moment, he got up and you went back to training. Neither of you remember this.)

 

The dream changes again. 

The man pinned to the floor is no one you recognize. He is calling you Cora. He is calling you baby. 

You twist the pipe until he screams.

 

Where have you been this whole time?

 

The man pinned to the floor is someone you recognize. He is calling you Cora. He is calling you baby, but you are done with that, done with him. You twist the pipe and keep twisting, letting it dig into the floorboards. You pull his head back with one hand and tear out his throat with the other.

“Good girl,” Deucalion says. You offer him your arm and he takes it.

(When you wake up, your hands are slick with sweat and you think for a moment it is blood. Derek sleeps soundly on the floor below. You stare out the window, lost in thought until dawn.)

 

You take the fight to the alphas again, because there is nothing so awful as waiting to die. This time, you storm their building. A fire on the first floor drives the human residents out while the pack climbs the stairs. Isaac and Boyd are held up battling the twins on the fifth floor, trying to keep them apart. Scott stays with Allison in the Argent apartment, defending her father against Kali. You and Derek and Stiles are the only ones who make it to the penthouse.

Smoke is oozing up from beneath the floorboards; the fire is burning faster than expected. You can see Derek’s nostrils flare, the slow flex of his claws. You need to finish this and get out.

You and Derek do your best to divide the alpha’s attention. Stiles nearly circles him with mountain ash before Deucalion catches on and tears a gash in the boy’s thigh for the attempt. Stiles falls back against the wall, trying to bind his wound with one of his shirts. Derek roars and you redouble your efforts.

The air reeks of blood and ash. Deucalion is tiring, but you can hardly see for the blood in your eyes and Derek’s left arm hangs useless. Stiles coughs with an unhealthy rasp. No one is coming up from the lower floors. Maybe they are dead. You gnash your fangs in frustration and turn your face to Derek, ready to plead with him for all your lives.

But it’s Deucalion who looks right at you and says, “Time to go, my dear.”

 

Where have you been? (You know, you know, you _know_.)

 

“What?” Derek’s voice comes out cracked and small. 

Deucalion is still talking, taunting, but you aren’t listening. You are remembering how you crafted the story, facts and falsehoods on brightly colored index cards like a school project. Kali was your sounding board, deciding the order of the attacks that would carve out a place for you in Derek and Peter’s memories. You came last of all, kneeling at Deucalion’s feet as he curled a hand over your nape.

“We’ll miss you,” he said, and under the dry humor you believe he meant it a little. Then all you felt was pain.

Now you are here, in a burning penthouse with your plan laid bare and the man you called brother slumped in his grief. 

The human boy, Stiles, is pulling at his arm, his attention torn between Deucalion (and you) and the circling flames. You remember laughing at him, eventually laughing with him. But the memory seems far away, like a story someone told you more than something you experienced. 

“Cora,” Derek says.

Something on a floor beneath you cracks and lets go. 

You shake your head. “I’m not your sister,” you say. “And you already know I’m right.” 

Derek’s expression contorts. Your face is a mask, but inside you feel better; you feel free. 

“You going to finish us now?” Stiles rasps, looking at Deucalion. Deucalion looks at you.

Right now, you think that Derek would offer you his throat without a moment’s thought. He’d welcome it.

“No,” you say.

Deucalion nods approval and crooks his arm. You slip your hand into the bend of his elbow; there is a sob somewhere on the floor behind you but you don’t turn.

“Good girl,” Deucalion says and you smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I have a crackpot fandom theory that won't leave me alone, and feel compelled to get it down on paper before I am ultimately Jossed.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Adventures in Solitude" by The New Pornographers.


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